


it seems to me, that love could be labeled poison, and we'd drink it anyways

by watermelons_official



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Everyone Gets A Hug, F/M, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, because FUCK THAT, lots of cursing actually im channeling my inner sailor, peter parker says fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 19:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19324312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watermelons_official/pseuds/watermelons_official
Summary: Peter Parker has been falling all his life.Because of that, he's really not surprised by the way he's dealing with Tony's death. He's suffering and he's spiraling. But before he can completely disappear in the sea of apathy and sadness that is his brain, he finds a sliver of hope, in the form of one Natasha Romanov.And if the universe wants him to get Tony Stark back, well. Who's Peter Parker to say no?





	1. oh boy, here we go again

**Author's Note:**

> sup y'all welcome to the endgame fix it no one wanted from me. be warned there is angst in here but I promise only a bit at the first few chaps to like do the fix it part. after that it's just fluff. so here you go enjoy this flaming pile of trash

Falling.

A natural thing. The result of gravity. Necessary, to a degree. Something that Peter Parker is familiar with. Well, maybe that's not saying much. Everyone is familiar with falling, right? Like that one time you weren't looking where you were going, and fell down on the sidewalk. Or that other time when Betty tripped you on the hallway. But it's in moments like this (when he's curled up in a corner, playing with the what ifs, letting them burn and consume him (thinking that maybe he deserves to be engulfed by the flames)) that Peter Parker wonders just how acquainted he is with the feeling of falling. Let me explain.

Peter Parker has been falling all his life. Tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and he has started to wonder what witch cursed the last name Parker. Because no matter how prepared he thinks he is for the next thing life decides to hurl at him, every single time, his head is left spinning as he tries to wipe the tears from his eyes before anyone else can see them.

Peter Parker knows falling. Hell, he swings around New York on a daily basis. He knows the rush of adrenaline that follows the release of a web, trusting that there's enough fluid in the webshooter. He knows that fraction of a second before he shoots the next web, when he thinks about how easy it would be to just... not. How easy it would be to fall.  
Peter Parker knows falling. He does. But just how much? Because when he thinks he's hit rock bottom, is when life rolls up in heelys and says 'Oh you thought I was done with you? Honey I'll let you know I have even more ways of ruining your life'. And because the rabbit hole keeps getting deeper and deeper, Peter has long since stopped trying to climb out.  
Peter Parker knows falling. He knows how petrifying it is to have the rug pulled out from under your feet. How you start to doubt every good thing that happens, because every new friend is someone that can be used against you, and every good moment is something you'll think back to as life beats you up with no regard for your protests.  
Peter Parker sits back and watches as the world around him catches fire.  
The lake house is pretty. Ms. Potts (Mrs. Stark?) had said that Tony wanted a quiet place. Somewhere where they could just... exist.  
"You should stay here for a while, you and May." Ms. Potts tells Peter the day after the funeral. He doesn't ask why. He has the feeling he already knows.  
So he stands there, his face unchanging, his body unmoving. She looks at him, then back at the house, where Morgan is fiddling with one of Clint's practice arrows.  
"You're always welcome here." Ms. Potts says.  
Peter nods, like he understands, and that's the end of that. She goes back inside the house. He continues to stare at the water.  
There's something strangely poetic about the whole situation. How Tony Stark started and ended his story with those four words. How he sacrificed himself, for the greater good. And so it feels selfish to want him back, but Peter can't help himself.  
And he beats himself up over it.

Because, you see, Peter knows rationally that he's allowed to grieve. He _knows_ that his relationship with Tony was more than just mentor/mentee. He _knows_ that what he lost wasn't a hero, it was a father.  
But that's the thing: right now, Peter's not being rational.  
He decides to go back inside the house.  
As he's nearing the door, he sees Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson heading out. Steve is wearing his quantum suit, as he and Sam argue about something Peter doesn't have the energy to pay attention to.  
Neither man acknowledges him, as Peter walks past them, through the door and into the dining room.  
"Hey May." He says. The woman in question is rummaging through her purse, but looks up at her nephew's greeting.  
"Peter." She says, purse now forgotten on the table, where May has dropped it in favor of holding Peter's shoulder in one hand, and cupping his face with the other. "How are you doing?"  
"I'm okay." He lies.  
May scrutinizes his face for a moment, searching for any sign that contradicts his statement, but, finding none, gives him a sad smile and goes back to looking into her bag.  
(Peter's gotten better at lying. Strange might have taught him a thing or two in the soul stone.)  
"I wanted to ask you something." May starts.  
"Shoot." Peter answers, leaning on a chair.  
His aunt hesitates, gnawing on her lower lip, as if choosing her words carefully.  
"I was wondering," She begins. Slowly, as if she were scared her following words would break him. Peter hated it. He absolutely despised the way that everyone seems to be walking on eggshells around him. Looking at him as if he were made of glass.  
He doesn't let it show. Instead, he's careful to keep a neutral expression, as he nods, encouraging her to continue.  
May sighs.  
"I know you want to go home. I know that you feel like a burden here, and you hate that you think _we think_ you're fragile. And the truth is, I have my own reasons, but, I want to go home too. I miss it, you know? So, how would you feel about leaving tomorrow?" She takes out of her bag a small, dark red journal, and a pen of the same color. Her movements feel natural and relaxed, as if she were speaking about something as unimportant as the weather, instead of Peter's deep rooted insecurities.  
And... Ok, wow.  
"I– yeah." He ends up answering dumbly. "Yeah, tomorrow– tomorrow would be nice."  
And that's that.  
Peter goes upstairs to one of the guest ro– sorry, his room. The day has left him drained, so he assumes that he'll be unconscious before his head even hits the pillow.  
He assumes wrong.  
After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, Peter is brought to the present by the smell of pancakes burning.  
His first thought is _'Ah, Aunt May has taken over the kitchen'._ But then he remembers that, as much as he hates to admit it, May's a good cook now.  
After the snap, the woman had taken to cooking as a coping mechanism, and, therefore, had improved a lot.  
You know, another reminder that the world had moved on without Peter that felt like a punch to the gut.  
The usual.  
Peter toys with the idea of getting up and checking on whatever unfortunate soul has burned their breakfast, but ultimately decides that he does not have the energy to get up from his bed, and continues to scroll through his Tumblr feed.  
Until someone knocks on his door, that is.  
"Peter?" Ms Potts calls softly. "We've got breakfast, if you want some."  
"I'll be out in a minute." Peter says.  
"Yeah. Yeah– okay." He hears her say, more to herself than to him, standing in front of the door for a few more seconds, before sighing softly and going back downstairs.  
Peter decidedly does not want to go interact with other human beings, but he throws on a t-shirt and some sweatpants on anyways.  
The first thing that catches the boy's attention, is that Rhodey is the one standing in front of the stove. Read: burning the pancakes.  
"Morning." Peter says distractedly, recieving scattered hellos and good mornings back.  
The second thing he notices is that Natasha Romanov is sitting at the table along with everyone else, eating a tortilla and seemingly not noticing the teenage boy that just entered the room.  
"Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw." Peter whispers, alerting the woman of his presence.  
"Oh." Says Natasha. "You guys didn't tell him?"


	2. it's not every day you get a chance to resurrect the dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok listen. i know this is so so late, like, it's been months, but. in my defense, the Muse does what she wants. also harley keener broke into my house and made me write him into this so now he's here, sorry not sorry about that

Honestly? Peter really doesn't want to do this right now. In fact, this is probably the very last thing he wants to do right now.

"Natasha. Romanov." Peter says, monotone.

He blinks.

Then, without another word, he spins on his heel, walking past everyone and out the door, ending up alone with the trees, the lake, and the sinking feeling in his chest.

The sun is out and the light tastes bitter. And Peter just might cry. Because he– he does not understand. His head is spinning and, once again–  _ once again _ he wonders just what type of crime he committed in a past life, because it must have been something horrible, like– like murdering someone. Maybe he was a murderer. A serial killer, perhaps. Though he actually thinks of himself as a passion crime kind of guy. Maybe he killed his wife. Maybe he killed his husband. Maybe it was something bigger. Maybe– hear him out, maybe he overthrew a government. Maybe he was a sort of real life robin hood. Or–

"Hey Peter."

He turns around sharply, his hands tightening in fists and coming up in front of him, prepared to fight. 

He slowly lowers them when he sees Natasha raising her own hands, but continuing to walk towards him. She stops right next to him, at the edge of the water.

They don't speak. Don't need to.

Her apology stays on the tip of her tongue, his countless questions stay unsaid. Instead, they stare at the lake in front of them.

If he squints, Peter can still make out the tribute Ms. Potts sent into the water. But he doesn't care for it, the words  _ 'Proof that Tony Stark has a heart' _ don't mean anything to him, so he doesn't bother to look.

After what seems like a lifetime, Peter breaks the silence.

"So... how'd this happen?" He asks, gesturing towards Natasha's general person.

She looks down at herself, then at him.

"Time travel." She says, but doesn't elaborate.

And he's smart, he gets it, but he's... disappointed. Because, he knows that she knows there was something else to his question. A 'why didn't you bring him back'. A 'can't you see I died along with him'. A 'how could you do that to me'.

But he doesn't say any of that. Instead, he hunches his shoulders and fidgets with the hem of his sweatshirt.

The silence between them is awkward, but if Natasha's uncomfortable, she doesn't show it. Her face is neutral, her expression carefully arranged to show nothing.

"The machine broke." She says abruptly.

Peter jerks his head to stare at her in surprise. She doesn't look at him.

"No one knows how to fix it." She continues. "Tony was the only one who knew how to make that thing work."

She pauses. Then, barely a whisper:

"I wanted to bring him back too. But now we can't."

He drags his eyes back to the water, and the resentment, the guilt, the anger, all leave him in a hurry. He understands it better now, that Natasha lost more than he could ever imagine.

He grabs her hand. She lets him. 

They stand next to the water, saying nothing, mourning silently what could have been.

Peter's tired. He wants nothing more than to fall face down on a bed, go to sleep and never wake up again. He's so, so  _ tired _ . He's tired of fighting. Of watching the people he loves die. Of waiting for the next tragedy.

There are footsteps behind him, and he recognizes them as May's, because she steps weird, and she tells him it's part of her charm.

"Peter?" She calls softly, and when he turns around and sees her, bag on her shoulder and car keys in her hand, he remembers that they were going to leave today.

"Oh." He says under his breath, and lets go of Natasha's hand. She turns to look at him, and her eyes are saying something, but he can't tell what.

"Do you... do you mind giving me a moment? Just a second, it won't take long." He tells May, a hopeful look in his eyes, and she nods her head, gives him a smile, and then turns back the way she came, presumably to get their bags and stuff them in the car.

Peter turns back to Natasha.

"You loved him." He says, and his voice is firm, because there aren't many things he's sure of, but this, this he knows.

"I did." She says. "Like my own brother."

He smiles. It's pained and sad and small, but it's real, because he needs it to be. They both do.

"I don't blame you." He says. "And you shouldn't either."

He slowly opens his arms, and inwardly curses himself for being so hesitant, but Natasha doesn't seem to mind. She closes the distance between them and wraps him in a hug.

"Thanks." She whispers, and Peter nods.

"It's nothing." He says.

He goes back inside the house, says goodbye to everyone else, then goes back to the car, where May's waiting for him. With a final wave goodbye to Ms. Potts, May starts the car, and they begin their way home.

That's the end of that.

Well, or so he thought.

The ride home is silent, but not uncomfortable. It never really is, with May, she has a way to make Peter feel relaxed, something that he can't quite put his finger on. He supposes it's a mom thing.

Arriving at their apartment, he feels that same wave of  _ tired _ roll over him, and once the door opens, he makes a beeline for his room, and collapses face first on his bed. He hears May chuckle to herself, as she stands on his doorframe, before she walks away, closing his door behind her, and Peter's left alone with his thoughts once again.

Deciding that he does  _ not _ want to be alone with his thoughts, he opens a window, for, while he can hear people from blocks away pretty well with it closed, having it open makes the sounds, lights and smells all hit him full force. It's like feeling the wind from inside a car, versus sticking your head out the window. Most of the time it's a nuance, it distracts him from whatever he's doing, but right now, with his breath picking up speed, and his hands starting to shake, a distraction is exactly what he needs.

He notices that the air feels cleaner, more pure, and it's really, really fucked up, and awesome at the same time, that it took half the earth's population literally vanishing, to make the air cleaner than it was before, if only by a fraction.

He focuses on what he can see next. Despite the fact that it's currently 8pm, the streets in front of him are more or less clear, partly because of all the lights that are currently illuminating the borough, and partly because there are more stars on the sky than Peter ever thought possible. Looking down, he sees a couple walking their dog through the middle of an empty street, and a teenage boy following close behind. Peter recognizes them, it's the Millers, they got married before... well, before  _ everything _ . The three of them wear matching smiles, and for a second, Peter feels jealous. It's gone as soon as it came, though, because he hears May's laugh from the living room, and he's reminded that, while he did lose, he also got to win, and May is the only thing he wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

He then stops to listen. The baby at the Gonzalez's, his next door neighbours, has chosen this exact moment to start a screaming contest with the family cat, and while Peter loves animals, he really doesn't want to listen to that, so he tunes it out, and looks for something else to listen to. The Millers are still there, and they're speaking now.

"It's pretty." Says Ruth, looking up at the stars. "So many things have gone wrong lately, but this... it's beautiful."

"It is." Maya agrees, but she's looking at her wife instead.

Ugh, feelings.

Peter tunes them out as well. He might as well go to bed now, it's late, but then there's another voice... and it's someone... cursing Tony?

"–and I don't even believe in the afterlife, but I swear to god, old man, if it's actually you that's doing this and you're fucking with me and this ain't even his real address, I'm gonna kick your ghost ass." The voice says.

And, ok, what the fuck?

The person shuts up, and then there are footsteps, and it sounds like they're now going up the stairs to Peter's door.

He's never moved faster in his life. He races out of his bedroom, past May in the living room, ignoring her call of "Hey! What's happening?", to get to the front door, and look out the peephole, to where he can hear the stranger's breathing and heartbeat.

Who he sees, turns out  _ not _ to be a stranger at all.

It's that kid from the funeral, the blond one. Harley something, he doesn't remember.

Harley's just standing there, in front of the door, as if arguing with himself on whether or not to knock on it. Peter makes the choice for him, he opens the door.

Harley takes a step back in surprise, but he quickly recovers, and clears his throat.

"Hi." Is all he says.

Peter gapes at him for a moment, but then he too composes himself.

"How can I help you?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Can I come in?" Says Harley, looking over his shoulder into the hallway.

"I– sure." Peter says, and he opens the door wider, stepping aside so that Harley can go inside the apartment.

He notices, once they're both sitting down on the couch, with May making some tea in the kitchen, that Harley is fidgeting with some kind of key. Peter doesn't say anything about it, though, because while he  _ is _ curious about what the object is, Harley is clearly here for a reason, and Peter has the feeling that it's much more interesting than some key.

But then, Harley holds up the key, and the words that come out of his mouth make Peter want to faint.

"I know how to get Tony back."

_ Damnit, it's way too early for this shit _ .


	3. how the turntables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is real short but like,, shit goes down and whatnot

The world didn't end with a bang. It never does. Peter knows this, has had his world end so many times he's learned the gist of it. It ends silently, every time.

Whispered last words, quiet, reassuring lies, a never ending stream of thoughts that never make it out. A 'you're alright', when you're everything but. An 'I love you' from your greatest enemy.

So he knew, that day, on what was left of the compound: he  _ knew _ that death was around the corner.

Once Thanos and his army disappeared into thin air, and Ms. Potts and Rhodey were silent, and Tony did not say a word, Peter knew.

After all, they were fighting a war, were they not?

But, god, he didn't want to believe it.

He didn't want to believe that he was losing a parent for the fourth time.

So, right now, as Harley stares at him, waiting for a response, Peter has two options.

Number one: he could keep listening to Harley, figure out how he's going to get Tony back, and possibly help him in doing so. The benefits of that, well. The benefit of that would be  _ getting Tony back. _

Number two: he could ignore Harley, tell him it's impossible to get Tony back, that the machine's broken and he's wasting his time. Peter could continue with his life as it is, go through the five stages of grief properly, move on from Tony's death. He's already started to move on, to accept that Tony's dead and he's not coming back, and as of right now, he's... handling it. He's coping.

Sure, he's still really fucking sad, and ok, maybe he hasn't slept in a while, and perhaps, despite himself, he spends his time dreaming about what he would be doing if Tony were still alive –

...So, in light of new evidence, actually, he's doing pretty fucking bad.

Harley, bless his soul, hasn't said anything while Peter’s been zoned out, considering his options.

They don't say anything for a while as Peter thinks, and Harley continues to wait patiently.

"How?" Peter says finally, his eyes downcast, his breath uneven, his hands shaking.

Harley takes a deep breath, and starts talking.

"The key," he starts, holding up the object in question. "It's for a box. Where Tony kept his blueprints. He said… before he left he said that if anything were to happen to the machine, the box had how to fix it." Harley pauses. Peter assumes it's to give emphasis: to make him focus. It's working.

"He left me the key," Harley says. "We can fix the machine.  _ We can bring Tony back _ ."

Peter doesn't say anything. He stares at Harley once more. Harley stares right back.

And Peter doesn't really comprehend what Harley just said until then he does. The meaning of his words sink in, and Peter suddenly wants to cry.

He sits in astonishment, not able to speak, to move, to do  _ anything _ , because  _ there's a way! They're bringing Tony back! _

He can't help the smile that appears on his face, and Harley, by the looks of it, can't either: his grin is almost as wide as Peter's.

A knock on the door interrupts their silence.

"Peter honey, can you get that please?" calls May, who's still in the kitchen, busy with the tea. 

Peter nods, even though she can't see him, as he stands up and heads towards the door once again.

He doesn't know what he's expecting, doesn't really stop to think about who could be on the other side of the door.

So naturally, when Peter does find out who his second guest for the night is, he's… surprised, to say the least.

He's surprised, because there's a disheveled looking Tony Stark standing in his doorway. Before Peter has the chance to say anything Tony's taking his hand, exposing his arm and stabbing him with a needle barely longer than the nail on his pinky.

Peter's knees buckle as the smile disappears from his face. He lets out a strangled sound from the back of his throat, and he hears Harley let out an incoherent shout. The last thing Peter sees before he falls unconscious is Tony's face hovering above him, wearing the concerned, borderline panicked expression Peter knows too well.

"I'm sorry, kid," he faintly hears Tony say, and then the world around Peter swims.

Black spots claim his vision, and then everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im in tears this is so angsty but i promise the next will (hopefully) be more fluffy. also, im (kinda) sorry abt the cliffhanger, but like,, it's not gonna take long dw, everything will be explained

**Author's Note:**

> ha! gotcha. did i get ya? i totally did huh? man. i'm awesome.


End file.
